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Supreme Court Appointment Process: Roles of thePresident, Judiciary Committee, and SenateSummaryThe appointment of a Supreme Court Justice is an event of major significancein American politics. Each appointment is important because of the enormousjudicial power the Supreme Court exercises as the highest appellate court in thefederal judiciary. Appointments are usually infrequent, as a vacancy on the nine-member Court may occur only once or twice, or never at all, during a particularPresident's years in office. Under the Constitution, Justices on the Supreme Courtreceive lifetime appointments. Such job security in the government has beenconferred solely on judges and, by constitutional design, helps insure the Court'sindependence from the President and Congress.The procedure for appointing a Justice is provided for by the Constitution inonly a few words. The "Appointments Clause" (Article II, Section 2, clause 2) statesthat the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of theSenate, shall appoint ... Judges of the supreme Court." The process of appointingJustices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature - thesharing of power between the President and Senate - has remained unchanged: Toreceive lifetime appointment to the Court, a candidate must first be nominated by thePresident and then confirmed by the Senate. Although not mentioned in theConstitution, an important role is played midway in the process (after the Presidentselects, but before the Senate considers) by the Senate Judiciary Committee.On rare occasions, Presidents also have made Court appointments without theSenate's consent, when the Senate was in recess. Such "recess appointments,"however, were temporary, with their terms expiring at the end of the Senate's nextsession. The last recess appointments to the Court, made in the 1950s, werecontroversial because they bypassed the Senate and its "advice and consent" role.The appointment of a Justice might or might not proceed smoothly. From thefirst appointments in 1789, the Senate has confirmed 122 out of 158 Courtnominations. Of the 36 unsuccessful nominations, 11 were rejected in Senate roll-callvotes, while nearly all of the rest, in the face of committee or Senate opposition to thenominee or the President, were withdrawn by the President or were postponed,tabled, or never voted on by the Senate.Over more than two centuries, a recurring theme in the Supreme Courtappointment process has been the assumed need for excellence in a nominee.However, politics also has played an important role in Supreme Court appointments.The political nature of the appointment process becomes especially apparent whena President submits a nominee with controversial views, there are sharp partisan orideological differences between the President and the Senate, or the outcome ofimportant constitutional issues before the Court is seen to be at stake.For a listing of all nominations to the Court and their outcomes, see CRS ReportRL33225, Supreme Court Nominations, 1789-2006: Actions by the Senate, theJudiciary Committee, and the President.